The
defending champion Mexicali Aguilas have continued to respond to new
manager
Pedro Mere and have built a four-game lead over Mazatlan and Navojoa in
the
Mexican Pacific League’s second-half standings.The Eagles won two of three hard-fought games in a weekend
series in
Mazatlan to lift their record to 18-6 with nine games left in the
regular
season.The Venados dropped to 14-10
after losing Sunday’s game, 4-2, falling into a second-place tie with
the
Mayos.Righty Mitch Lively took the loss
for the Deer to fall to 9-2 on the season after winning his last eight
starts.Meanwhile, Navojoa won in
Culiacan, 2-0, as Eddie Gamboa and four relievers combined on the
shutout.

A
6’5” Californian, the 32-year-old Lively has enjoyed a banner 2017
south of the
border.He pitched well for a poor Leon
team in the Mexican League, going 7-2 with a 2.41 ERA for the Bravos
over 74
innings, including 12 starts, to give him a combined 16-4 mark between
the two
leagues.The Venados ace leads the
MexPac in wins, strikeouts and WHIP and is threatening to become the
LMP’s
first 10-game winner since Culiacan’s Jorge Campillo in 2004-05.Campillo went on to pitch in the majors for
Seattle and Atlanta and is currently a VP with the LMB Tijuana Toros
after
serving as the team’s GM for several seasons.

The
Hermosillo Naranjeros’ second-half slide following their first-half
title has
continued, with the Orangemen next-to-last with a 9-14 record, three
games
ahead of hapless Los Mochis.Hermosillo’s front office and fans are used to success and
rumors have
surfaced that manager Lorenzo Bundy’s seat may be getting warm.The Naranjeros recently became beneficiaries
of Obregon’s sell-off by acquiring former MLB and NPB pitcher Luis
Mendoza from
the Yaquis for three prospects.One of
them, Hermosillo native Isaac Paredes, was a well-regarded Cubs
farmhand before
being dealt to the Tigers organization last summer.The infielder spent the entire season playing
in the Class A Midwest League, pretty fast company for an 18-year-old
who hit
.252 with 11 homers and 70 RBIs in 124 games for South Bend and West
Michigan.

What’s
been a long season in Obregon got a little longer when new fan favorite
outfielder Tomo Otosaka returned to Japan after playing the last of his
27
games for the Yaquis on December 14.Otosaka won over supporters with a .410 batting average with 15
runs
scored and another 12 driven in while walking 13 times in 113 plate
appearances
for an on-base percentage of .487.The
23-year-old Otosaka has hit .237 with 7 homers and 22 RBIs in 196 games
for the
Yokohama BayStars of Japan’s Pacific League since his 2014 debut.Attendance has plummeted at year-old Nuevo
Estadio Yaquis this winter as fans appear to be losing confidence in
the Yaquis
organization under owner Rene Rodriguez, who bought the team from the
Grupo
Modelo brewery following the team’s trio of LMP titles earlier this
decade.

Five-time
All-Star first baseman Adrian Gonzalez could be forgiven if he’s beyond
ready
to turn the calendar to 2018 a couple weeks early as his nightmarish
2017 has
taken yet another couple of dagger-like twists.The man known as “El Titan” and considered by many to be the
best MLBer
of Mexican descent was one of four Los Angeles Dodgers players sent to
Atlanta
last weekend in a trade for outfielder Matt Kemp.Also
dealt to the Braves were veteran
pitchers Scott Kazmir and Brandon McCarthy and young infielder Charlie
Culberson in a transaction regarded by some as a salary dump for both
teams.Gonzalez is scheduled to make
$22.4 million for the last year of his contract in 2018, of which the
Dodgers
picked up $4.5 million of the tab as part of the swap.

However,
if the
35-year-old Gonzalez had even begun thinking of hitting in the
high-altitude,
homer-happy environment of Atlanta’s new ballpark (a 13-year-old Little
Leaguer
homered off the left field upper-deck facade in August), such thoughts
were
dashed as the Braves designated him for assignment almost as soon as
the trade
was announced, in effect putting the 14-year-veteran back on the
trading block.

Gonzalez
has collected
2,010 career hits, including 311 homers and 1,176 RBIs, with a slash
line of
.288/.359/.488 over 1,875 MLB games since he debuted with the Texas
Rangers in
2004.Along with his five All-Star
picks, the San Diego native (who spent many years growing up in Tijuana
along
with brother Edgar, now in the Jalisco Charros front office) has won
four Gold
Gloves and two Silver Slugger awards while being named Player of the
Month once
in each league and picking up eight Player of the Week designations.

There had
been
speculation in some quarters that Gonzalez might join his brother in
Guadalajara and play for the Charros this winter, but that appears
unlikely.

Tijuana’s Blanca
Uribe first woman
LMB Executive of the Year

The
Mexican League Assembly of Presidents enjoyed a relatively quiet week
at the
annual Baseball Winter Meetings earlier this month in Orlando, and even
made a
little history in the process when Tijuana Toros’ deputy vice president
Blanca
Uribe became the first woman to receive Executive of the Year honors in
the
LMB’s 92-year history.Uribe is the
daughter of Toros owner Alberto Uribe and sister of team president
Alejandro
Uribe, and was recently promoted from a vice president’s position she’d
held
since 2014.

While her
father and
brother are more involved in the baseball end of the Toros, Blanca has
served a
more “heart-and-soul” role with the team, organizing several events and
creating tie-ins involving charitable organizations along with other
outreach
efforts.The Toros have become one of
the Mexican League’s model franchises in just four years.They won their first LMB pennant in September
and their Academy Rookie League affiliate won that loop’s title.The Toros’ Mexican Winter League club in
Moroleon
(shared with Leon) qualified for the LIM playoffs, but was swept by
Oaxaca in
the first round.Mexico City then beat
Oaxaca to win their third straight LIM flag.

Also at
the Winter
Meetings, the LMB confirmed their two 2018 short-season schedules.The first season will run between March 22
and May 28 with three-tiered playoffs to follow in June.After a June 29 All-Star Game scheduled for
the perpetually-delayed Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu in Mexico City, the
second
season will open July 3 and end September 8 with another month-long
playoff
ending with an October 8 Championship Series Game Seven (if needed).Each regular season will consist of 57 games,
although the schedules will not be evenly balanced in games between
divisions.

For the
second Assembly
of Presidents meeting in a row, LMB president Javier Salinas
confiscated all
cell phones from participants to prevent leaks to the media.The move worked, as no mention was made of
either the Rookiegate imbroglio between the Mexico City Diablos Rojos
and the
Quintana Roo Tigres or the volatile ongoing ownership situation
involving the
Durango Generales.Durango has been
included as one of the 16 teams playing in 2018 but the question of
whether
embattled Generales owner Virgilio Ruiz can hang on to the team remains
a
mystery.

3,000 attend
Liga Olmeca opening
ceremony in CDMX

Mexico’s
largest Little League organization held opening ceremonies for the
2017-18
season earlier this month at the Liga Olmeca complex in Mexico City.An estimated 3,000 people were on hand as New
York Yankees pitchers Luis Cessa and Giovanny Gallegos joined Lee
Sigman (the
Yanks’ Mexican scouting director) to help first-year Liga Olmeca
president
Carlos Fragoso welcome players and parents to another season of amateur
baseball in the capital city.

Fragoso,
an Obregon
native who grew up with David Gonzalez (father of Edgar and Adrian) and
works
as an engineer for Siemens, himself has been a scout for both the
Yankees and
Boston Red Sox as well as a coach at the national level in Mexico.According to Fragoso, there are about 900
youth baseball and softball players in Liga Olmeca while another
500-plus
adults play softball at night for a total of nearly 1,500 ballplayers.